Rangers 0-2 Celtic: Samaras settles an otherwise quiet Old Firm derby

January 3, 2011

The starting line-ups

Georgios Samaras scored his first two goals of the season to hand Celtic an important victory.

Walter Smith replaced Steven Naismith with Jamie Ness, who came into the centre of midfield, pushing Steve Davis to the right, and Steven Whittaker switched to the left. Elsewhere, it was unchanged from Rangers’ previous game, in the 4-4-1-1 shape Smith has favoured in recent weeks.

Celtic’s starting XI was less certain, thanks to injury, suspension and Freddie Ljungberg’s virus preventing him from making his debut. Neil Lennon persisted with 4-4-1-1, with Paddy McCourt given a free role behind Samaras, and Biram Kayal coming into the centre of midfield.

The two similar shapes created a fairly uneventful game early on. There was only one shot on target in the first half – a header from a corner by Lee McCulloch – and there was a general lack of action at either end.

We didn’t even have the traditional Old Firm midfield battle, either – the two midfield partnerships both played surprisingly deep and therefore there wasn’t much of a confrontation between them. The two players ‘in the hole’, Vladimir Weiss and Paddy McCourt, had minimal defensive responsibilities.

Playmakers quiet

Weiss and McCourt were in theory the two key players – given free roles to move across the pitch as they liked, with a duty to support their respective lone strikers. They played the role in different ways – Weiss tended to move out towards the flanks in search of space, whereas McCourt dropped deeper into midfield and made Celtic a 4-5-1, meaning they struggled to get the ball forward, because of the lack of a clear forward pass.

Partly as a result of that, Rangers were marginally the better side. Their midfield was narrow, with Steven Davis tucking in on the right and Steven Whittaker coming inside on the left flank, but they often kept the play central before surprising Celtic by switching the play quickly to one of the full-backs (or Whittaker) stationed wider on the flanks. Still, with not much aerial presence in the box there was little chance of a goal from a cross, and so Rangers rarely threatened.

The other interesting tactical feature of the game was Madjid Bougherra’s runs forward from central defence – he frequently went haring forward to join the attack, so McCulloch or Jamie Ness dropped in at centre-back. This movement rarely looked likely to unlock the Celtic defence, however.

Second half

In half-time interviews, both assistant managers (Ally McCoist and Johan Mjallby) identified a lack of support for their main striker as the main reason they’d struggled in the first half. Samaras initially found himself surrounded by more green and white shirts when the ball was played forward, but after 5-10 minutes of the second half, McCourt dropped deep against and Samaras was isolated once more.

Still, it turned out not to matter, as Samaras created both goals without the need for teammates. The first goal was a long ball downfield that Alan McGregor misjudged – Samaras rounded him and slotted home. The second saw a good solo run from the Greek striker, before he was brought down by Bougherra. He converted the penalty himself, and Celtic were rarely threatened in the final 20 minutes.

Conclusion

The goals owed little to design – or tactics – but both stemmed from very similar situations. With both strikers receiving a lack of support from midfield, it was down to them to make the difference. Celtic’s centre-back pairing simply coped better with Kenny Miller than Rangers’ duo did with Samaras.

I suppose that’s why some of the best managers in history are Scottish and there are 4 Scottish managers in the EPL right now, cause we just don’t do tactics in this country…

Please keep your xenophobia to yourself.

Kipp9 on January 3, 2011 at 7:33 pm

Xenophobia is defined as the “hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture”

****Yes I really fear dour negative football.****

Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation or feigned ignorance)[1] is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions. Ironic statements (verbal irony) often convey a meaning exactly opposite from their literal meaning.

Patrick on January 3, 2011 at 9:39 pm

The foreigners in question would be Scottish people, and considering your own definition says fear OR hatred, I think one could argue that your original comment displayed a hatred of a certain Scottish culture, Scottish football culture to be precise.

Your post was pathetic. This website is a haven for people who seek to avoid ill-informed opinions such as yours, so please take your petty sniping elsewhere.

Go write a thread on 606 about how Messi has never scored against Stoke…

Afnan on January 4, 2011 at 3:47 am

Who are the managers you are talking about?
I don’t have anything against Scots not having tactical knowledge but the best managers in club football in my opinion are Trapatonni, Mourinho, Pep, and Sir Alex Ferguson. Only 1 is Scottish here. I would like to know the others you are referring to.

Kipp9 on January 4, 2011 at 7:42 am

In all fairness they said 4 managers in the Premier League.

Though they conviently ignored my second definition, that of Irony.

bertrand on January 5, 2011 at 4:33 pm

Pep Guardiola, the best manager in the world?

You must be having a laugh.

A manager being the best after 2 brilliant seasons..is a load of shit. One can only be judged after having consistently produced results…unlike Pep who inherited a world class squad and did not really add anything substantial to it. Any half decent manager would have been able to win alot with Xavi, Messi, Alves and Co.

EdinburghEagle on January 4, 2011 at 12:19 pm

Steady on man, xenophobia’s a fairly wild accusation to throw at someone just for criticising the standard of our football. Hell, I’m a hibs fan and pretty much *all* I do is criticise the standard of our football these days… Scottish football is, by any objective measure, awful. While there certainly are a few very good scottish managers, as a general rule they do not ply their trade in Scotland. Our (domestic) players are technically poor and tactically inflexible. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy our game, but high class it certainly is not.

I remember listening to sportsound (BBC radio scotland’s flagship football show), I think in the wake of an awful performance vs Lithuania, where every contributor agreed that our game requires reform at a grassroots and youth level. However when one of them suggested that we should copy the Dutch model of youth development and, rather than focusing on competitive 11 vs 11 games, encourage small sided games with rules designed to improve technical development and emphasise passing (stuff like ‘no shooting until every player on the team touches the ball’ or not keeping scores; nothing revolutionary) *everyone* else on the programme, including current and former managers and assistants, laughed him out of town – blathering on about desire, passion, competitive edge and the like. It might work abroad, but not for Scotland apparently. Hardly any of our players have an acceptable level of skill and technique and our answer? Be more passionate. Sums up Scottish football for me.

Scotland does seem to have an extraordinarily high export of quality managers considering its size..

the league is handicapped by an awful football association, and poor youth development infrastructures, and I include the government in stifling our young athletes..

so yes our standard of football is in the main appalling, but there are some surprisingly interesting thinkers in this wee country…

David on January 5, 2011 at 4:24 pm

well, it makes sense in a way. the best Scottish managers move on to greener pastures as soon as they’re noticed. I think it’s fairly obvious that there isn’t a lot of managerial talent in the Scottish league right now. for one thing, 9 of the 12 SPL managers have only been with their current club for 2 years or less, and Walter Smith is the only manager who has been with their current club in the SPL for more than 3 years. I’m not sure, but I’d guess that this is pretty uncommon, even for a league of this size.

Badman on January 5, 2011 at 1:50 am

Objectivity is always lost when English people comment on Scottish football. It seems to be almost ingrained within the English psyche that Scotland and its football is just naturally inferior. I’m not sure why this exists; if one looks at the head to head record of the two national sides there is no real evidence to support it. This should change, and objectivity should become universal.

JH on January 3, 2011 at 1:24 pm

Thought that Lennon played this game very well. I’m surprised that you didn’t mention Mulgrew being played in front of Izaguirre – nominally a left-back, he offered a bit more defensive cover and as part of the reason Davis (normally Rangers’ most creative player) had such a quiet game. On the whole, defending deep and narrow seems to be the best way to stop Rangers: they really lack natural width, especially when Davis is playing out wide and compounded by Whittaker (a right-back and a poor midfielder) being played on the left-wing. Moving Weiss to the wing would have made more sense, but Celtic defended well even when Rangers went 4-4-2.

I take it you found little of tactical interest in the game? Having watched a lot of Celtic and Rangers I thought it was very tactically interesting the changes both teams made to try and neutralise the other and thought Rangers suffered from being favourites and being expected to come out and attack in front of the home crowd (especially when Smith’s line-up was geared towards solidity, with a centre-mid and a right-back out wide.

Kieran on January 3, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Thought you may also have made reference to the fact that Ledley and Kayal got a lot closer to the Rangers midfield and pressed a lot better than they did in the first half – forcing them into more mistakes.

And as the previous reply suggests, Charlie Mulgrews inclusion offered more of a physical prescence and the added threat from set-pieces for Celtic.

Rangers only ever worry me from set-pieces, or when they look to get Miller in behind. Since we defended deeper and were well-organised from set-pieces, it nullified their main threat and we were fairly comfortable as a result

Celtic fan on January 3, 2011 at 2:07 pm

I actually thought this was the most tactical Old Firm derby in years, they tend just to be violent midfield battles with lots long balls and tackles.
There were even times yesterday when some actual football was getting played haha, I thought Celtic dealt with Rangers well, deserved winners. I also agree with JH, Mulgrew dove-tailed very well with Izaguirre on the left

JH on January 3, 2011 at 9:06 pm

Yeah, our left-hand side looked pretty solid (as did Celtic on the whole.) I think Mulgrew suits that role – he’s not particularly fast and has looked defensively suspect against bigger opposition (against Braga, in pre-season) when he plays at left-back but he did a good job in midfield. Although he doesn’t offer as much going forward as McCourt or Maloney (probably my favourite Celtic player) and had a few moments of misunderstanding with Izaguirre, he did a good job here and offers a different option for bigger games.

To be fair, in the SPL, he has been decent and is a good squad player to have.

Enjoyable piece ZM, I took great interest in both managers selections, especially Lennon’s (as Smith’s was somewhat forced by injury and threadbare squad)

Might argue that the first goal was “tactical” related

Rangers were enjoying a bit more of the ball, Celtic were sitting stubbornly deep. Rangers defence almost exclusively sits extremely deep and they were like fish out of water on the halfway line. Bougherra can probably cope but old man Weir should be nowhere near there.

So for me it was a successful and planned counter attack, mixed with a bit of naivity from the Gers.

Over the moon with the result!

JH on January 3, 2011 at 9:01 pm

Yeah, Bougherra really covers for Weir’s lack of pace. He was left brutally exposed though on quite a few occasions.

It was particularly to satisfying to see Celtic doing to Rangers what Walter Smith’s been doing to us for years. It’s promising to see that Lennon is learning quickly. I’d already said that, even if we don’t win the league, I’d like to see us stick with him as I think he has something about him. He showed her that tactically he can be better than he’s given credit for.

Anonymous on January 3, 2011 at 5:30 pm

I too thought this game was very interesting tactically. I think that’s because it was one of those rare occasions when Celtic weren’t attempting to beat Rangers by being more attack-minded.

The onus was on Rangers, as favourites and the home team, to go out and win. Rangers are never good at doing this against opposition of a similar standard and they were caught out by a Celtic team who were happy to let Rangers come forward.

I thought Celtic’s strategy was to sit deep in order to prevent Rangers playing balls in behind for Miller. Once this is no longer an optionn Rangers are forced to pass forward on the ground because Miller and Wiess have no chance in the air against Rogne and Majstorovic. However, because Rangers are not suited to patient build-up play they often resorted to shots from distance, which was an equally ineffective approach.

Take the counter-attack out of Rangers’ game and they have no plan B. That’s what I learned yesterday.

Anthony on January 4, 2011 at 6:33 pm

A little shortsighted to suggest that “The goals owed little to design – or tactics”.
Unless you believe that Lennon picked his starting 11 at random from a hat.

As others have already suggested, picking the defensively-minded Mulgrew to play on the left resulted in a much tighter 3 in midfield, making it much harder for Miller and Weiss to either run at or get behind Celtic’s central defence. It forced Rangers up the field, resulting in them making mistakes whilst their ponderous rearguard was exposed at the same time as giving Samaras the room to do what he does best. But, ho-hum, no tactics…

It was a welcome change from some of the stuff served up by Mowbray’s team last year. Now that really was football without much in the way of design or tactics.

The goals essentially came from mistakes – a terrible decision from McGregor, and a stupid tackle from Bougherra – when Rangers were more than well-stocked at the back. Unless Lennon specifically predicted those circumstances happening, the statement is not remotely shortsighted.

JH on January 5, 2011 at 2:21 pm

You could argue though that Lennon knew that Ranger’s defence was vulnerable to pace (with Weir in particular having to compensate for a lack of pace with an excellent reading of the game and the insurance of Bougherra being able to cover for him.) Usually, against Celtic, Rangers sit back and play a compact game which allows them not only to nullify the threat of Celtic’s pacier players but use Miller’s speed on the break. However, Celtic (as it has already been noted that they rarely do against Rangers) played on the counter, selecting Mulgrew to keep it tight and the quicker Samaras over the more prolific Stokes. Both the goals came from Lennon’s overall gameplan in the sense that Celtic were sitting back and absorbing pressure, drawing Rangers’ back line higher up the pitch and then exploiting its lack of pace on the counter-attack. In this sense, his tactics were spot-on.

Moreover, Celtic created more chances than Rangers by finding the right balance – Rangers played without a natural wide-player (Weiss can play that role, but played centrally and was completely ineffective), whereas Forrest and Mulgrew are more suited to those roles. Attempting to break Celtic down whilst lacking any natural width or creativity (with Davis wasted out wide) was totally futile, whilst Celtic negated their threat by defending narrow and using two left-backs to neutralise Davis.

I agree with a lot said here, and in fairness to ZM a lot of understanding of Lennon’s (and Smith’s) setup does require a bit of indepth background knowledge. Lennon’s setup was pretty alien to us Celtic fans in these derbys.

Another thing of note which tactically worked for Lennon was how he helped protect his centre-backs, any of which combination he has chosen this season have been astonishingly bad. But against Rangers by playing them so deep, stubbornly refusing to get out of their own quarter and playing 2 deep hustler type centre-mids and fairly reserved full-backs, they were afforded real protection for once – instead of being marooned up against Miller, the only 2 defenders in their own half. Really was light and day compared to recent setups, but I understand the SPL isn’t really covered on this site – however I am delighted ZM takes the time out to look at this derby and I hope he continues to do so.

zaid on January 5, 2011 at 7:41 am

will you do coverage of the upcoming AFC Asian Cup?

Bert Dagastino on January 6, 2011 at 4:34 pm

One of the laziest reviews i’ve ever read on ZM!

Could be forgiven thinking it was written by a hutring sympathiser!

Anonymous on January 7, 2011 at 2:11 am

I am grateful ZM takes time to review these games, however I do agree this article is brief in the extreme. This website is done for nothing though, so it’s a case of ‘my house my rules’.

I just think it’s sad that what is undoubtedly the fiercest and biggest derby game in The UK is being increasingly ignored by English people. They look down their nose at Scottish football, maybe that’s fair enough, but this game is special in world football, it should be valued by the whole of the UK.

I live in Scotland and it’s getting to the stage that it’ll soon be easier to follow the EPL here than The SPL. Due in no small part to the liscence fee.

We also have the absurd situation wherein I can watch an English team in the group stage in the Champion’s League on ITV but I cannot watch a Scottish team who are playing on the same night.

Scotland has the highest percentage of the population attendnig football matches in Europe. We love the game up here but it is being slowly smothered.

We can’t even have an SPL game covered on this excellent site without some half-witt feeling the need to put us down in the very first comment.

anon on January 7, 2011 at 6:04 pm

Celtic were not better, the ref was for celtic, Celtic cheated, Dived for the penalty. Should have had two players sent off. What? Is’nt this what we are supposed to do when things don’t go our way or is that only Lennon and Celtic that can do that?
Also was I the only one that noticed all the ridculous coughing Celtic done during the minutes silence? Why has this not been wrote about? I was at the game but my friends who watched it in a local bar said that sky muted the sound? Why is this being covered up?
Scottish football is sadly in a mess and needs a very good shake, I don’t feel however that the EPL is the best, It is probably the most hyped and the richest but it certainly doesn’t have the highest standard of football or the best players.

JH on January 7, 2011 at 6:19 pm

Aye, away back to Follow Follow.

Bert Dagastino on January 8, 2011 at 1:51 am

Cretin Hun alert!

ANON on January 8, 2011 at 12:38 pm

Is that your argument? Witty. Come on Bhoys, Tell me why I am wrong?

JH on January 8, 2011 at 6:18 pm

Fine. It was a stonewall penalty. If anything, Bougherra should have been given a second yellow card. Out of interest, what two Celtic players do you think should have been sent off?

As for the whole coughing thing – totally mental. I’ve never seen a minutes silence so impeccably observed. Not even worth arguing about and exactly the sort of thing that this website was set up to avoid having to discuss. If you have anything to say about the game tactically (and there is a lot to discuss from a Rangers perspective) then I’d be happy to debate it with you but don’t waste anyone’s time with this “coughgate” rubbish.